


The Winter King

by laireshi



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Angst, M/M, Magic, Open Ending, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 20:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17128280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: It’s curious how planning a regicide could end up being a courtship.





	The Winter King

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MiraMira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMira/gifts).



> Happy holidays! I was inspired by your suggesting things might not have been better if Vortalis lived.

It’s curious how _planning a regicide_ could end up being a _courtship_.

Or that’s what Vortalis imagines Holland might think, the incorrigible romantic that he is. Vortalis himself just wasn’t used to denying himself what he wanted, and he _wanted_ Holland. First for his help, and that was impersonal: he just needed the power of an _Antari_.

But Holland _gets it_. He actually wants to save this sad, dying world. And Vortalis doesn’t dream of that, but he wants to make it at least _slightly_ better, and maybe he needs Holland’s faith more than his power.

So they kill Gorst, and Vortalis is the king and Holland is his knight—

And at night, he is his lover.

***

Planning reforms is easier than implementing them, but Vortalis was prepared for that. It’s Holland that he worries about, still looking around their pale world, disappointed every time when the only spot of colour he finds is fresh blood.

“We have to start slow,” Vortalis explains.

“We have to _start_ ,” Holland corrects. He smells like flowers, which means he’s recently visited the other London. A part of Vortalis is jealous. A part thinks it’s better not to see what he knows is there: a world alive in magic, a mirror reflection of theirs.

He never worries that Holland won’t return from one such travel, that he’ll choose to live somewhere that doesn’t try to kill him. They’ve never said, _I love you_ , neither one of them, but that doesn’t matter. There’s something stronger: they both stupidly, hopelessly love White London.

They want to see it fixed.

(Vortalis doesn’t tell Holland when he starts to doubt if it _can_ be fixed.)

***

Holland doesn’t like to kill.

But one day Vortalis falls down, coughing, already thinking, _poison_ , before he blacks out—

And he wakes with Holland’s hands pressed to his chest, blood streaming down from his slashed wrist, and two bodies on the floor next to them.

“ _What?_ ” Vortalis coughs.

Holland’s eyes are uncharacteristically cold. “A _failed_ regicide.”

_Astrid and Athos Dane_ , Vortalis will learn later, powerful enough they thought to challenge the Winter King and his _Antari_.

_If people are trying to kill the king again_ , Vortalis thinks, still weak from the toxin, _it’s him who’s failed._

***

Another year comes.

Starved villagers try to kill Vortalis when he’s out on a parade. They’re so weak he doesn’t need Holland to stop them: they fall down from exhaustion almost as soon as they raise their weapons.

Vortalis doesn’t think, _How to make it better?_

Instead, it’s _How to bring order back?_

He meets Holland’s eyes and wonders if the _Antari_ realises they might want different things after all.

***

All White London kings end up tyrants.

Vortalis runs a blade down Holland’s arm.

“I need your blood.”


End file.
